Prashant Kishor Unveils New Political Party

Acclaimed poll strategist Prashant Kishor has formally announced that his movement will soon take the shape of a formal political party.

On 9 June 2024, officials of district-level organisations of Kishor’s Jan Suraj campaign gathered at Gyan Bhawan in Patna. Addressing these officials, Kishor said that the new political party will begin functioning on 2 October 2024, the 155th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

The date is not a coincidence. It is a well-known fact that Kishor has styled himself as a follower of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Kishor began his padyatra from Bhitiharwa Gandhi Ashram in Champaran on 2 October 2022, the same place from where Gandhi began the Indian sojourn of his social and political journey.

Jan Suraj will distribute tickets based on proportional representation — more population means more tickets and vice-versa. A minimum of 40 women will also contest from the party. The party will contest all 243 seats in the Bihar Assembly elections of 2025. Kishor has rebutted any talks of aligning with any political party.

Though alignment with parties is currently off the table, news of politicians from other parties joining Jan Suraj keeps popping up in local news. Before the general elections of 2024, Sacchinanand Rai, a member of the Bihar Legislative Council (MLC), was associated with Jan Suraj. Later, he extended his support to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and said that he would talk to Kishor after the elections.

Many others associated with Jan Suraj campaigned for different parties in the 2024 general elections. However, it is understood that Kishor had given them the freedom to do so.

In the past, Kishor has said that his ideology is closest to that of the Congress. He has also worked closely with Rahul Gandhi and the party in the past.

During his well-planned journey across Bihar, Kishor has travelled through thousands of villages in Bihar. In these villages, he takes notes of ground-level problems and tries to change voters’ minds on their traditional motivations behind voting.

Instead of caste lines, he urges Biharis to vote with education, health, and other aspects affecting them and their children. Even to Muslims, an identity group whose voting pattern has been defined by established political parties, Kishor asks them not to become a vote-bank for parties.

En route, thousands of youths — ranging from average block-level half-educated young men to graduates of eminent institutions like IITs, IIMs, and IIMCs among others — are laying the groundwork for the proposed political unit. In one of his interviews, Kishor says that he asks people to prepare a roadmap for every village he and his team visit.

The yatra is expected to end by the end of September this year.

In a triangular political space occupied by BJP, Rashtriya Janata Dal and Janata Dal (United), Kishor's Jan Suraj has come up as something different — the party which talks about development.

It is yet to see whether in 2025 legislative assembly, Biharis will give them opportunity to talk the talk.